Let’s have another look at Hortense’s Memoirs. If you want to read the book it is available for free at the side bar in English and French. Use the widget on the sidebar to translate the text below into pretty much any language.
Hortense was reprimanded by Napoleon and it set off a time when she didn’t like him all that much. Hortense describes how Napoleon said that Queen Louise of Prussia was flagrantly carrying on a liaison with Czar Alexander in front of her husband. Napoleon also said on another occasion that Queen Louise threw herself at Napoleon in a similar manner.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
My mother succeeded in diminishing slightly the effect the Emperor's words had produced. But for a long time afterwards I felt a terror and general sensation of discomfort come over me every time he entered a drawing-room in which I happened to be.
I could not bring myself to speak to him, and yet I must admit he showed himself most considerate toward me. When the time came for his daily drive, on which only my mother accompanied him, he would invite me to go with them and would speak on topics which he knew interested me, such as, for instance, the establishment of the girls' school at Ecouen [for the daughters of the officers of the Legion of Honor], which was to be directed by Madame Campan. He appointed me in advance the guardian princess of this institution and went into the details of his plans in connection with it—a thing he rarely or never did.
Another time the Emperor described his interview with the Emperor Alexander at Tilsit. "He is a charming young man," he would always say at the end, "and I like him very much. As for the Queen of Prussia she is handsome, pleasant in manner but rather affected, and," he added, turning towards my mother and giving her a kiss, "she does not compare with my Josephine."
The Empress, who was aware of his efforts to amuse me, asked him questions in order to make him keep up the conversation. She often asked him what the King of Prussia was like. He gave a detailed and rather favorable portrait of this monarch. "As far as his tact is concerned," he went on, "what do you think of a prince who tells me when I have just annexed the province of Silesia from him, the well-known anecdote of how Frederick the Great wished to take his battledore away from him when he was a child and he refused obstinately to give it up, causing his uncle to remark, 'At least I am glad to see that no one will ever make you give up Silesia'?
“To be sure the King was in an awkward position," the Emperor continued, "and therefore he should have been particularly careful and dignified in his behavior. One day I was tracing out on a map spread in front of me how the territory was to be divided. Whenever he felt that Prussia was not receiving her due deserts he would tip back in his chair and kick the bottom of the table saying, ‘How about me? Is anything at all going to be left over for me?’
He also displayed a little too clearly his jealousy regarding the Emperor Alexander's attentions to the Queen. I once went riding with the two rulers.
Alexander had gone on ahead to catch up with the Queen. The King of Prussia was unable to conceal his uneasiness. He kept glancing about in all directions and exclaimed, 'Where can the Emperor of Russia be? He seems to have lost us.' While I, in a brotherly spirit, replied that he had been there a moment before and that he could not be far away."
In speaking of the Queen of Prussia the Emperor acknowledged her beauty, but he had not approved of her attitude as ruler of a country whose territories had been invaded. He considered that she made too great an effort to be agreeable, that she paid too much attention to her personal appearance, an attitude which revealed a lack of good taste.
He claimed that under similar distressing circumstances a French princess would have been well gowned but without any show of ostentation. As for the King of Saxony the Emperor considered him the best and most virtuous of men.
CHAPTER VIII
LIFE AT THE EMPEROR'S COURT--THE BIRTH OF NAPOLEON III (SEPTEMBER, 1807-MARCH, 1808)
At the Saint Cloud Fair—A Startling Talk with Napoleon—Fouché Suggests a Divorce to Josephine—The Marriage of the Duc d'Arenberg—The Surgeon of King Louis—Birth of Charles Louis Napoleon—Monsieur de Talleyrand Comes to Call—Caroline's Confession—Josephine's Debts—The Emperor of Russia—Hortense and Her Talismans—Her Intervention on Behalf of Talleyrand—Madame de Metternich—General Durosnel.
SOON after my return to Saint Cloud I realized I was about to have another child. I resolutely cast aside all the gloomy thoughts which I had cherished so long, considering that my life no longer belonged to me alone and that it was my sacred duty to preserve it.
Another duty served to stimulate my energy. I had again undertaken the task of leaving no stone unturned in my efforts to assure the happiness of my husband, that being who seemed to shun deliberately everything that might restore his peace of mind.
I shared my mother's apartment; the King's rooms were on the lower floor. He seemed annoyed about this and I decided to move down beside him. Louis was bored at Saint Cloud and wished us to stay in Paris. In order to follow him there I was forced to leave my mother and my son. Furthermore, I was obliged to conquer my grief at being surrounded by objects which recalled the loss I had sustained.
Unappreciative of what I was doing for him, my husband remained cold and self-centered, rewarding my efforts to please him neither by word nor glance. While we had been on our journey our physician had urged him either to advance or postpone the date of our return to Paris for fear that the moment of our arrival there might not be favorable to my health. Nothing could change Louis' plans. The carriage in which we drove daily from Paris to Saint Cloud where we dined came from the imperial stables and was very uncomfortable, so much so indeed that I was one day so badly jolted as to become ill and be in danger of a miscarriage.
I spoke to the King about it, asking him to allow me to stay that night at Saint Cloud as I felt really unwell. "You know that this would inconvenience me," he replied shortly. This reply crushed me. It was so cruel that I felt it gave me the right to consider myself freed from one set of duties and in a position to give myself wholly to other obligations.
As a crowning piece of misery the King wished to return to Holland and take me with him. In vain my medical adviser declared that the injuries my long and frequent journeys had inflicted on me made such a trip entirely impossible for at least another four and a half months.
My husband pretended not to understand these reasons, told me that I was a better judge of what was good for me than my physician and that I should be all right in two weeks. He repeated this statement until the moment of his departure, saying, "I shall expect you in two weeks."
How could he be so inhuman toward his wife when he was kind enough to other people? During our last trip I had seen him sympathize with the illness of the son of a poor peasant, have the sick boy cared for by his own doctor, and delay our departure in order to look after this utter stranger.
Before we were married, he frequently went without his private carriage in order to lend it to a young boy who was in poor health. It seemed as though I were the only being for whom he reserved all his harshness. And yet that was what he called love.
Is it surprising that this word has always filled me with terror? Madame de Broc left me in order to rejoin her husband who wished her company. All her personal feelings made her desire my return to Holland yet, eager as she had been for a reconciliation to take place between me and my husband, she was equally convinced now that all hope for our future happiness together must be given up. As she loved me she could not see why, after I had attempted to achieve the impossible, I should submit to this new sacrifice.
Consequently, she entreated me to remain in Paris for my confinement. "I will conceal nothing from you," she said; "I promise to tell you the truth about the King. If I again discover any traces of that suspiciousness, that malevolence toward you, which you are unable to stand any longer, if I hear him make any more of those statements which sully your reputation, I will not hesitate to advise you not to return to him. Your life is necessary to your children and to your friends, and those with whom you come in contact will know how to judge your conduct."
“My dear Adele," I replied, "my life in Holland was such that if I return there it will be only as a means of putting an end to my existence. I feel that at the present time my life belongs to someone else, and I must care for my health in order that he may live. If I survive my confinement—and I do not believe I shall do so—you will see me again in Holland. I care too little about what becomes of me to have the will to resist the forces that urge me thither. My fate lies there. I will return, come what may."
Adele's departure saddened me. I had nevertheless consented to her going away. She would be happy in the company of her worthy husband. It had been agreed we should write one another when the opportunity occurred and place the letters in hat-boxes or other packages, as we were convinced that otherwise our correspondence would be opened and read.
The original French is available below:
